


Sent Off for Sausage

by friendlyneighborhoodsecretary



Series: I'm Never Prompt with Prompts [13]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: During the Blip, F/M, Pepper Potts is a Very Patient Person, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), The Gerald Origin Story No One Asked For, Tony Stark Has Interesting Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodsecretary/pseuds/friendlyneighborhoodsecretary
Summary: Pepper intended to come home from the farmers' market with little more than produce and maybe some local goat cheese or organic honey if she was feeling adventurous. But, as per usual when Tony is involved, things don't exactly go to plan.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: I'm Never Prompt with Prompts [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558726
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53





	Sent Off for Sausage

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: "Put it back, put it back, PUT IT BACK!"

“Put it back, put it back, _put it_ _back!_ ” Pepper tries not to get shrill when the _thing_ at the other end of the lead in Tony’s hands begins to nose at the hem of her sweater. She really does. She doesn’t have anything against animals in general—dogs are sweet, fish are soothing, and she _did_ have an adorable little calico cat growing up—but she begins to have qualms about anything that approaches the threshold of being bigger than she is. Especially when she’s already bigger than she usually is, her stomach already rounding out with four months’ worth of baby under the very sweater that’s in danger of being nibbled on. It wouldn’t worry her as much as it does if she wasn’t cornered by produce booths on two sides and one wall of the farmhouse that’s hosting the community market on the other. And if she couldn’t spot what looked ominously like a bill of sale balled up in the same hand that held that lead rope.

“Pep—” Tony smooths a placating hand down her shoulder, his voice taking on the wheedling tone she knows all too well. “Pep, hear us out here—”

“Are you counting the—llama? Is that what this is? —in that ‘us,’ Tony? Because the only responsible party I’m seeing here is you.”

“—it was an emergency. Poor Gerald—who is an alpaca, by the way—"

“ _Gerald?!_ You named it already?” The it in question rears away from the edge in Pepper’s voice and crowds back in Tony’s direction. He merely pats its flanks as if he’s been doing it for years.

“—wasn’t doing so hot in the livestock auction and you _know_ what happens to farm animals who don’t sell, so I had to do the heroic thing and intervene before he ended up being sent off for sausage.”

“Sausage,” Pepper repeats, dubious. There’s no way a creature that appears to be made up entirely of bambi eyes and dove-gray floof would be recycled into sausage. A few dozen sweaters maybe, but not sausage.

“Exactly. And you gotta admit, that’s no way to go.” Tony gestures with his free hand, as if waiting for Pepper to agree with him. She folds her arms over her stomach and raises both brows at him, tapping a finger against the handles of the sack of farmers’ market veggies they actually _came_ for as she gathers herself for the rebuttal. She sighs.

“Tony, this is—this is too much. We’ve already got enough on our plates with the move and the baby prep and the company restructure…” Just thinking about all the things they’ve had to juggle in the months since the Blip makes her tired, let alone thinking about all the things still filling up her current to-do list. They don’t need any more complications. And Tony knows that—he _has_ to know that, given how close they’ve clung to one another in the aftermath. He’s always been a man of his whims, but this pushes the limits of even Pepper’s incredulity. She can’t fathom what would possess him to buy a living, breathing farm animal the same way she’s been buying cherry tomatoes. The baby kicks against her stomach, little feet as sharp and swift as Pepper’s own rising frustration. “How were you even planning to get it _home?”_

“It’s the country.” Tony sweeps out a hand to encompass the farmyard, the cars and trucks and trailers parked in the grass that borders the temporary market, the clusters of people milling casually around them as if openly bickering about livestock isn’t all that strange. “No shortage of farm vehicles to rent. Or if we can’t, we could probably get creative with the van’s backseat—we got the foldable one, right? It’s perfect—Gerald can just hop up and—”

“No.”

“Pepper. C’mon. We’ve already got a barn.” That much was true, Pepper could admit. The lakehouse they’d purchased thirty minutes down the road from here had indeed included a barn. It hadn’t been included in the drastic remodel Tony had supervised, but it was still there, tucked among the pines like some sort of set piece for their little slice of escapism.

Tony clears his throat, an odd expression flickering across his face as his gaze drifts down from Pepper’s firmly set jaw to the bump beneath her sweater.

“It’ll be a good project. Before…” He trails off and nods at the bump and in that instant, Pepper understands. She remembers the manic energy that came and went with the rest of the major adjustments that have marked their lives. The strange projects and baffling whims. The choice of Burger King over the hospital, the impromptu press conferences, the abrupt stint as a racecar driver, the _giant Christmas bunny_ —oddities are a given with Tony Stark. And never quite so much as when he’s afraid.

Pepper sighs even as she feels her resolve soften and slip away. What can she say in the face of that? They’ve been through a lot, and they’re about to plunge into a whole lot more that neither of them were entirely prepared for after the losses they’d weathered. If Tony needs a furry distraction to cope with the stress, then so be it. It is, at least, progress from some of his past choices. She can appreciate the baby steps.

“Fine. But he’s all yours. The feeding, the cleaning up, the whole thing.”

The edge of Tony’s mouth quirks up in the brittle half-smile she’s seen so much of lately. It’s tense in the way it often is after the baby is mentioned. But it’s getting better. Softer. Warmer. More settled with each passing day away from the life that did nothing but remind them of how things were. They take steps forward and steps back (along with sideways and diagonal and all the other directions imaginable along the road to grief recovery), but forward is always the goal. And ridiculous as it is, perhaps this is just another step.

“You know, I’m pretty sure there was a stall with chickens a few rows back. We could go all out. Make it a regular farm.”

“Don’t push it,” Pepper says as she brushes gently past him with just enough of a pause for a kiss to the cheek. Even though she knows full-well that that is exactly what he does best. Even if the rest of the world changes to the point of being unrecognizable, that, at least, will always stay the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading, lovelies! <3


End file.
